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So You Want to Compete with Steam

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Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#161

Post by Feniks »

on_and_off wrote: post #92
kenhwang wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine is set to update on WiFi only. And everyday, without fail, the moment I plug my phone into a power source in the evening (could even be to my computer for debugging), it'll start going through and applying all available updates. The performance impact is always noticeable during the duration of the updates. Other common case is when I pull into my driveway/office and happen to be charging my phone in the car and…

Just my anecdotal experience but Windows stopped me while I was doing something by suddenly rebooting the machine. The update took ages, well, more than 30 minutes, still very annoying. In the end, the visible change was the addition of Edge and Cortana .. A good way to make me decide to never use these 2 apps.

In fairness Steam forces updates too. In the old days you could play games without updating to the latest version. Now game updates are mandatory.

So MS followed Valve on this.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#162

Post by zach43 »

simion314 wrote: post #154
on_and_off wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just my anecdotal experience but Windows stopped me while I was doing something by suddenly rebooting the machine. The update took ages, well, more than 30 minutes, still very annoying. In the end, the visible change was the addition of Edge and Cortana .. A good way to make me decide to never use these 2 apps.

Agree, why is Windows taking that much time to apply some updates? And you can't do anything while the updates are in progress.

A friend of mine joked that a recent Windows update “downloaded the entire internet and then proceeded to install it”. The next day, I watched with horror as my computer restarted with the same Windows update...it took a similar amount of time (45 minutes to download, 30 minutes to install)

I would really like to know what it was downloading, and why it took so long. My entire windows partition is only 100GB, it would have been faster for me to back up my data, download a new ISO and install Windows from scratch than to just update it.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#163

Post by BorkJames »

johnchristopher wrote: post #76
kenhwang wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, I wish the Google Play Store/Apple App Store did things half as well as Steam does, like: - Backing up application data in the cloud (game saves) - Update priorities (ASAP, before next launch, before everything else) - Throttling bandwidth use or background updates (because I know you're streaming Youtube and your battery got low and you just want to have enough juice to finish your video, but Google Play Music…

> Update windows (like when the phone is idle in the middle of the night, not when I'm in the middle of using it) No, no, no. That's how I ended up with a laptop burned screen. Or being woken up by whatever music it was playing at that time. Solution: update when I press the button or when I planned it myself.

The problem is that Windows is designed for the lowest knowledge user, who would never manually prompt for updates because they either think them useless, don't know they are there, or have a "don't fix it if it works" mentality.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#164

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

madisfun wrote: post #94

The day you try to contact Steam support, you'll know how to compete with Steam.

Their support is pretty bad from what I hear, but then again, so is Microsoft's. Bad support doesn't seem to be the kind of thing anyone is making decisions based on, no matter how much people like to bitch about it.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#165

Post by pbhjpbhj »

PostOnce wrote: post #18

What if Steam had to, by law, share your game library with other services? i.e., just like you can take your phone number to any other phone company, or how banks in europe have to share info, you were able to take your game library with you to any other game distribution service? Perhaps the same could be done for iOS/Android portability

You'd need to pay Steam a librarian fee, or something. People would buy games on the low cost markets with the crap management and low user numbers, then transfer to eg Steam. Steam pick up the costs of updating, managing users, etc., and the other sellers get the money from sales.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#166

Post by _9jgl »

flukus wrote: post #148
spacehunt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's also that they treat all wifi as the same. You can tell the system which Wifi networks are metered, at least since Lollipop if not earlier.

How? Long pressing brings up nothing relevant (and don't get me started on hidden functionality like that), no swipe actions in the wifi settings, if it's there it's not obvious.

On 8.1, it's in Network & Internet/Data usage/Network restrictions. It does seem odd that they put it in the data section, not the wifi section.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#167

Post by MagnumOpus »

Fnoord wrote: post #98
kgwxd wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one wants a game that requires a "platform", they just don't realize it or care enough to boycott over it.

I know plenty of people who like Steam, including myself. Netflix also does DRM but it Just Works (tm). What sucks is having many platforms. For example, cable TV (from whereever you are from), Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime is 4 already. For gaming, there is Steam, Origin, Battle.net, GOG that's 4 already. If you take a smaller "app store" like Origin the question arises why does this even exist? It brings nothing on to…

> Well, price is zero

Except it isn't - Steam reportedly charges a chunky 43% extra on top of what the publisher gets (30% of the retail price you pay goes to Valve).

Other platforms try to charge the same, but for a near-zero-marginal-cost good, it is a bit strange that there is no price competition yet...

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#168

Post by cyborgx7 »

dageshi wrote: post #88
sergiotapia wrote: post #67

Steam has lost that "discovery" aspect to it. It's now mainly weaboo garbage, early access and PUBG clogging up the trending and leaderboards. I feel like I can no longer discover cool titles or great things people are buying on the site.

Yes, an entire industry of youtubers volunteered to take care of discovery and curation for games, valve saw that and decided to "just" be the video game version of Amazon and take care of sales and distribution.

Which is a decision I agree with. I feel like the ones who sell the products and the ones who recommend the good products shouldn't be the same people.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#169

Post by Feniks »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #159
cptskippy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GOG links to your Steam Account and will add games to your library that exist in your Steam Library. It only does this for participating publishers but it's still an effective way to copy your library.

But GOG has weird standards for what it will and will not allow on its store. Yatzee had some game he made denied, and Zachtronic's Opus Magnum was also denied.

GOG still does curation. Valve used to decide what got on their store too but they opened the floodgates for any old crap.

Mind you Valve still has a policy against porn. Lots of games still have to link to uncensored patches.

Re: So You Want to Compete with Steam

#170

Post by lmm »

dataflow wrote: post #120
mmjaa wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You guys really have less trouble with package managers than Windows installers? Yes, because: >(I don't remember exactly) There is your problem. Your package manager prevented you installing something which would have caused instability, and you didn't grok it well enough to understand, and somehow this is the fault of package management? Did you upgrade your dependency graph before deciding it was all too difficul…

>apt was telling you something important: you chose to just ignore it because "too confusing" or whatever What "it" are you even talking about? I didn't "choose to ignore" anything . I Marked all Upgrades, clicked Apply, rebooted when it was finished, went to see if there were any more upgrades (there were some), tried to mark & apply them, and was greeted with this error. Apt/Synaptic got me into this broken state a…

> Apt/Synaptic got me into this broken state and couldn't get me out of it. I don't know what story you're reading, but it doesn't seem to be what I've been writing. There was nothing for me to ignore. The error wasn't something I ignored; it was the problem.

No. Nothing was broken. The updates you had asked for were about to break something if you installed them. The error message was the package manager stopping you from breaking your system.

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